THE phonics war is, indeed, phoney if teachers are expected to follow a pre-ordained programme mindlessly. If, however, teachers are expected to do a good job of helping their children to learn to read then they will be using a wide variety of strategies including analytic phonics and synthetic phonics as well as “real books”, contextual information and word recognition. A wide and intelligent debate will be of benefit.
I am sorry all you “phonics is king” people, but there is more to reading than that, as most teachers know. I hope most of them have the sense and courage to act upon their knowledge rather than your prescription.
AG Harper
The Malt House, Silver Street, Chacombe, Banbury
